Category: genealogy

Renee Ryan asked me if I had any information on Maberry Hitt. He shows up in four federal censuses 1850-1880. His place of birth is listed as South Carolina and his date of birth was probably 1823. He is listed in some internet databases being born in Laurens County, SC as the son of Lazarus Hitt and Edna Fache.

Maberry is not in my list of children of Lazarus and Edna, so to check this possibility, I looked at the 1830 Federal Census information from Laurens County.

The 1830 census lists the “Head of Household” as well as categorical data by gender and age range (ages 0-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, etc.

There are four families from Laurens County listed with surname “Hitt.”

The Reuben Hitt (1881- 1855) in this census was married to Martha Hamilton. Their oldest son was Lazarus who was married to Edna Fache (their birth dates are ambiguous among the various censuses). The Larkin Hitt in the census was a first cousin of Reuben’s. One of Larkin’s daughters, Nancy (b. 1822), would become Reuben’s second wife. Finally, the William Hitt in the census was a first cousin of Lazarus’s (and a nephew of Reuben’s).

From the census data, we see there is no male child listed in the 5-9 year range. So this does not support the claim that Maberry Hitt was born in Laurens County in 1823. Since census data collection is prone to errors, this does not disprove the claim, but it does bring it into question.

The only male child in the above table I cannot account for is William Hitt’s son age 0-5 (born 1825-1830). I have no idea who that is. The first male child of his that I have is Benjamin Hitt born 1832.

If Maberry Hitt did not come from Laurens County, he might have come from another area of South Carolina, such as Edgefield or Greenville. There were two Hitt families listed in the 1830 census in Edgefield: Martin and John. John has no sons in the 5-9 year old category, but Martin has two. In Greenville, there were four families, three of which have a 5-9 year old son. These were the families of William Hitt, Robert Hitt, and Peter Hitt. I don’t know these families, but I will see what I can learn.

Hitt families also show up in Pickens, SC and Abbeville, SC, but they don’t have sons of the appropriate age. I also checked a few variant spellings of Hitt in the 1830 SC census, but I didn’t turn up any leads.

I think the best bet is to focus on the Martin Hitt of Edgefield, SC who had two sons 5-9.